Step 1: Cut a hole in a box

Eli and I drove to Woodside last week to scope out a potential wedding venue. Some things we were not expecting:

1. Most places only give tours during the business hours of M-F 9am to 5pm. Hey, those are our business hours too.
2. The places with the best views know they have the best views and only do full-day events on weekends... which means if you want to have a small outdoor ceremony somewhere, you have to rent the sucker for 8 full hours.

Passing by a massive ranch in Woodside where some guy was hitting golf balls into a field, we started mulling over that classic question made infamous by Office Space: if money weren't an issue, what would we do all day with our time? We both decided that we would choose to read and study languages and play the piano... and then travel and read some more.

But if we ever do strike it rich, it looks like we're in luck on the language front: the folks who created the excellent ChinesePod service have launched SpanishSense... hope they keep it up! Too bad I won't have much of a commute starting next month. ;-)

Childhood obesity on a stick

Sorry, I'm still on my "sad for America" kick... this was just too crazy not to share.

Banking on a little hope

With everything that's been going on in the news, I've been feeling a bit ambivalent about humanity lately. I suppose it doesn't help matters that I recently finished The Road, a novel which takes place in a post-nuclear-disaster world where cannibalistic gangs roam the earth.

So... I've been a little bummed the past few days.

That's why it was especially nice to hear about Kiva.org today from Christine -- it's a service that helps you make loans to small business owners in developing countries. Most loans are repaid in full, and you can make loans as small as $25, so it's kind of a nifty, low-key feel-good thing to do. Christine and I lent money to a 25-year-old medical store owner in Nigeria... feel free to join in. :)

Post-engagement life

I know we promised lots of photos, but after the marathon effort involved in putting together the Kodakgallery album on our Spain trip, we're going to take a little break from all that. Enjoy the album if you haven't already seen it (and I reckon most of you have). I don't know if you can see my new ring in any of the pictures... in any case, it was on the wrong hand the entire time I was on vacation (seriously, did I miss that day in school or something??) and it wasn't until we got home and looked it up on Wikipedia that I put it on the correct hand. I never claimed I was good at being a girl. :)

Since coming back, Eli and I have started exploring some of our area's amazing open spaces. We saw lots of cool scenery on our trip, but we realized that there are so many beautiful places right under our noses, places that we want to hike and explore in those sunny slivers of evening we have between work and dinner. As much as I complained about Daylight Savings this year, it's definitely got its perks... sunsets at 7:40pm being one of them.